Assassination Classroom

Assassination Classroom
Cover of the first volume of Ansatsu Kyōshitsu, as published in Japan by Shueisha
暗殺教室 (Ansatsu Kyōshitsu)
Genre	Action, Supernatural, Comedy
Manga
Written by	Yūsei Matsui
Published by	Shueisha
English publisher	NA: Viz Media
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	July 2, 2012 – present
Volumes	13
Original video animation
Directed by	Keiji Gotoh
Studio	Brain's Base
Released	October 6, 2013
Runtime	30 minutes
Anime television series
Directed by	Seiji Kishi
Written by	Makoto Uezu
Music by	Naoki Satō
Studio	Lerche
Licensed by	AUS: Madman Entertainment NA: Funimation Entertainment
Original network	Fuji TV (and other FNS stations)
English network	US: Funimation Entertainment
Original run	January 9, 2015 – present
Episodes	22

Assassination Classroom (Japanese: 暗殺教室, Hepburn: Ansatsu Kyōshitsu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yūsei Matsui, and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump since July 2012. The series follows the daily lives of an extremely powerful octopus-like teacher and his students dedicated to the task of assassinating him to prevent Earth from being destroyed.

A single original video animation adaptation by Brain's Base based on the series was screened at the Jump Super Anime Tour on October to November 2013. This was followed by an adaptation by Lerche based on the manga which began airing on Fuji TV in January 2015. This adaptation has been licensed by Funimation for release in North America. A live action film has been announced. As of December 2014, twelve tankōbon volumes have been released in Japan with a circulation of ten million copies. The manga has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language North American release.

Plot

The Earth is threatened by a powerful creature who destroyed 70% of the Moon with its power, rendering into the shape of a crescent moon forever. The creature claims that within a year, Earth will also be destroyed by him, but he offers mankind a chance to avert this fate. In class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High School, he starts working as a homeroom teacher where he teaches his students not only regular subjects, but the ways of assassination. The Japanese government promises a reward of ¥10 billion (i.e. 100 million USD) to whomever among the students succeeds in killing the teacher, whom they have named "Koro-sensei" (殺せんせー, Korosensē, a pun on korosenai (殺せない, unkillable) and sensei (先生, teacher). However, this has proven to be an almost impossible task, as not only does he have several inhuman abilities at his disposal, including the capacity of moving at Mach 20, but he is also the best teacher they've ever had.

Characters

Class 3-E (nicknamed E as in 'End Class') is a subdivision of the Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Class 3-E is notorious for containing a group of students with naturally low grades. Conventionally, it is composed of thirty students who could not either compete with the school's standard level of study, nor comply with its overly rigid code of discipline, amonge others who were subject of some kind of unfair punishment. Obliged to attend class in an isolated, run down school building, the students of Class 3-E are largely discriminated against by the rest of the school. The students of this class are assigned the mission to assassinate their homeroom teacher, Korosensei, for the compensation of ¥10 billion ($126 million). This becomes the primary motivation for most of the students in the class to kill Korosensei, so their teachers, friends, and family will acknowledge them. As time goes on, each student finds his or her own unique killing technique and find themselves becoming more self-confident and happy as the year progresses.

Teachers

Koro-sensei (殺せんせー, Korosensē)

Voiced by: Masaya Onosaka (vomic), Tomokazu Seki (event anime & J-Stars Victory VS), Jun Fukuyama (TV anime)

Korosensei is the main character of the series. He is the homeroom teacher of Class 3-E of Kunugigaoka Junior High School. He is the perpetrator of the explosion of the Moon, which has rendered it permanently in a crescent shape. Despite not having the intention to get killed, he offered to governments all over the world a chance to kill him under the condition that he is allowed to be the homeroom teacher of class 3-E until the end of the year, when he will destroy the Earth unless he is killed. He is dedicated to his task as a teacher and imparting his knowledge of assassination to the students, despite knowing full well that he himself is their target. He takes a form similar to an octopus with eight tentacles and his skin color changes depending on his mood. He is able to move at a maximum speed of Mach 20, and usually uses it to travel all over the world to enjoy the local food and attractions. This makes it hard for the students to kill him. While he is initially thought as an alien, he later reveals that he is actually an artificial creation from the Earth. In one of his flashbacks, he used to have only two tentacles and a more human-like appearance. His decision to become a teacher involves his promise with a woman who thought that he was suitable to become one. This has yet to be elaborated upon.

Korosensei appears as a playable character in the video game J-Stars Victory VS.

Tadaomi Karasuma (烏間 惟臣, Karasuma Tadaomi)

Voiced by: Kōsuke Toriumi (vomic), Junichi Suwabe (event anime), Tomokazu Sugita (TV anime)

He is a government worker associated with the Ministry of Defense. He first appeared announcing Korosensei's deal with the government and their mission to assassinate him before the end of the year. He later became the assistant teacher and P.E. instructor of class 3-E to train the students. He is well known amongst militaries for his outstanding reputation and is a powerful individual, which he has proven when he easily overpowered Irina's master, who is a retired professional hitman, and even Korosensei himself is afraid upon seeing his capability for the first time. He is strict, but kind man, though he keeps a distance between himself and the students due to his status as an agent and his own professionalism. He is one of a few who is very perceptive enough to see Nagisa's talent as an assassin. He seems to know Korosensei's past, though he has no intention to indulge into it further.

Irina Jelavić (イリーナ・イェラビッチ, Irīna Yerabicchi)

Voiced by: Masumi Asano (vomic), Yui Horie (event anime), Shizuka Itō (TV anime)

She is a professional hitwoman with Serbian accent who is hired to kill Korosensei by becoming a part-time foreign language teacher in class 3-E. She uses her charms to seduce Korosensei, making him at first obeys to whatever she asks. However, her first assassination attempt was foiled when Korosensei able to suppressed her 3-men's attacks, ending in her humiliation and swore revenge. She teaches the students how to seduce people from other countries, so that with this method, they can learn foreign languages, and usually would punish male students who failed answering her questions during her lesson by kissing them. She is nicknamed "Bitch-sensei" after Karma shortened her name when she told them to call her "Jelavic-onēsama." It is a pun; the -vić in her name is pronounced -bitchi because of the students' accent. She develops genuine feelings for Karasuma later on, even trying to go on a date with him. Unfortunately he misreads this as a new assassination trick that she is working on.

Class 3-E

Nagisa Shiota (潮田 渚, Shiota Nagisa)

Voiced by: Nozomi Yamamoto (vomic), Nao Tōyama (event anime), Mai Fuchigami (TV anime)

He is one of the students in Class 3-E and the main student character and narrator. Nagisa is seen as one of the weakest students in the class due to his small stature and mediocre physical abilities that are comparable to some of the girls in the class. However, he is actually the most talented to become an assassin out of all the students, something that is acknowledged by Korosensei and Karasuma. He is able to draw closer whilst hiding his bloodlust to make a surprise attack and is able to make his opponents falter through his bloodlust alone. Nagisa usually writes Korosensei's weaknesses that at first seem minor (since they don't look like major weaknesses) down, but some of them are eventually revealed to be useful as the students are almost able to kill Korosensei because of one of these weaknesses. Outwardly friendly and polite to his friends and everyone, he hides a somewhat darker side of him as an assassin that won't be able to be found out during daily classes and will only shown during training and assassination time. When engaged in battle, Nagisa becomes a brutal assassin who would throw away his life if it meant killing his target. According to Karasuma, whenever Nagisa unleashes his killing intent, he isn't training and truly goes for a kill. At home, Nagisa lives with his chronically absent father and abusive mother. She tries to live vicariously through him by making him follow her exact life plan for him, because she experienced a lot of failure in life, and was also never allowed to look like a "pretty girl" by her parents. This causes her to constantly tell him she wishes he was born a girl and make him grow his hair long, which she only lets him tie up because if she unties it he still looks like a girl. His mother is also the foundation for his assassination talents, because whenever he tries to defy her when she is in what he perceives as a "gloomy" moment, she grabs and screams at him, so he learned to tell between her "cheerful" and "gloomy" moments, as to prevent some of her abuse. Nagisa realizes that this is similar to the "Wavelengths of Consciousness" that the "God of Death", the world's best assassin, talks about. After this realization, he tells Koro-Sensei he has the talent to be an assassin in a career planning meeting. His home life improves and his desire to be an assassin wanes after he saved his mother from an assassin, in which he realized his talents can be used to save people and she realized that she can't hold onto him forever.

Karma Akabane (赤羽 業（カルマ）, Akabane Karuma)

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (vomic), Nobuhiko Okamoto (event anime/TV anime)

He is one of Nagisa's closest friends and considered to be the strongest and smartest amongst the class 3-E students. He is the first one to be able to inflict injuries on Korosensei during their first meeting. He was suspended from school prior to Korosensei's arrival as the class' homeroom teacher due to his mischievous behaviour. Unlike most students in the class that were relegated there due to their low grades, Karma is one of the school's most gifted students, but developed a rebellious attitude due to his previous teacher's betrayal after he severely wounded a top third-year student while saving a bullied student from class 3-E, as despite believing he has done the right thing, his teacher revealed that he was only siding with him due to his grades to increase his reputation and did not want to be held responsible for what happened, Karma then proceeded brutally beat the teacher. Because of this experience, Karma at first distrusted Korosensei, but he is shown that he is unlike the other treacherous teachers at the school, making him slowly accepting him.

Tomohito Sugino (杉野 友人, Sugino Tomohito)

Voiced by: Yūtarō Honjō (event anime), Yoshitaka Yamaya (TV anime)

He is one of the students and Nagisa's close friends. He used to be a baseball player in their school's baseball club until he was assigned into class 3-E, making him kicked out from the club. He dreams to become a professional baseball player like his idol, Arita, and emulates his techniques to improve his own performance in baseball and is shown to very dedicated to it. He also sometimes used his baseball techniques in his attempts to kill Korosensei. He has a crush on Yukiko.

Yūma Isogai (磯貝 悠馬, Isogai Yūma)

Voiced by: Yūto Uemura (event anime), Ryōta Ōsaka (TV anime)

Yūma is the class president of class 3-E. He is well-liked by his classmates and the ladies who regularly visit the café he works at. He is considered to be an "Ikemen" by his classmates, because of his good-looks, friendly, hard-working and modest personality. According to Kaede, he even receives love letters from the female students of the main school buildings. He comes from a poor background; living alone with his mother, who is suffering from an illness. Due to his background, he is said to be very versatile with food, able to cook and consume goldfish.His classmates also note how he is able to look stylish, even whilst wearing bargained clothing, further boosting his "Ikemen" image. He is also shown to be a good leader, as he was able to lead the class 3-E boys to victory against class 3-A in the Boutaoshi.

Ryōma Terasaka (寺坂 竜馬, Terasaka Ryōma)

Voiced by: Subaru Kimura (TV anime)

The biggest in Class E.

Taiga Okajima (岡島 大河, Okajima Taiga)

Voiced by: Ryo Naitou (TV anime)

The pervert of Class E.

Masayoshi (Justice) Kimura (木村 正義 (ジャスティス), Kimura Masayoshi (Justice))

Voiced by: Shunsuke Kawabe (TV anime)

The fastest runner of Class E. His parents were dedicated workers of the police, so they gave him the name "Justice". He does not like his name so he goes by Masayoshi, another way the kanji "Justice" can be read.

Sōsuke Sugaya (菅谷 創介, Sugaya Sōsuke)

Voiced by: Eiji Miyashita (TV anime)

The Artist. Class E's disguise specialist.

Hiroto Maehara (前原 陽斗, Maehara Hiroto)

Voiced by: Kenn (event anime), Shintarō Asanuma (TV anime)

The womanizer in Class E.

Kōtarō Takebayashi (竹林 考太郎, Takebayashi Kōtarō)

Voiced by: Takahiro Mizushima (TV anime)

The Anime and Maid Cafe Fan. Also, Class E's bomb specialist.

Ryūnosuke Chiba (千葉 龍之介, Chiba Ryūnosuke)

Voiced by: Junji Majima (TV anime)

Best marksman for the males of Class E.

Kōki Mimura (三村 航輝, Mimura Kōki)

Voiced by: Shinya Takahashi (TV anime)

The Movie Director wannabe.

Takuya Muramatsu (村松 拓也, Muramatsu Takuya)

Voiced by: Kōki Hirasawa (TV anime)

Noodle specialist

Taisei Yoshida (吉田 大成, Yoshida Taisei)

Voiced by: Yoshiyuki Shimozuma (TV anime)

Motorbike specialist

Itona Horibe (堀部 糸成, Horibe Itona)

Voiced by: Megumi Ogata (TV anime)

2nd Transfer Student sent to assassinate Koro-sensei. Previously known as Korosensei's brother, he used to posses tentacles that came out of his hair, until they were removed for his safety.

Kaede Kayano (茅野 カエデ, Kayano Kaede)

Voiced by: Yō Taichi (vomic), Ayana Taketatsu (event anime), Aya Suzaki (TV anime)

She is one of Nagisa's classmates and close friends, being the one who is mostly seen with him. She hasn't shown any capabilities during her training to become an assassin, and so far has only been shown to discuss Korosensei's weaknesses along with Nagisa. She experiences a slight inferiority complex when it comes to sex appeal, resulting her to get angry whenever there's a woman with big breasts and readily protest. Kaede is the smallest student in Class 3-E and is even shorter than Nagisa and Manami.

Manami Okuda (奥田 愛美, Okuda Manami)

Voiced by: Miho Arakawa (event anime), Sayuri Yahagi (TV anime)

She is a student of class 3-E who uses aspects of chemistry to her advantage in assassination. Manami is naive, guileless and honest; when she has handed bottles of poison over to Korosensei, she informs him of their intoxication, but begs him to drink them anyway. Manami admits that she is terrible with language and speech and has difficulty to communicate with others due to this. She favors math and chemical formulas because the solutions are precise and unambiguous and deems clever wordplay and analyses of complicated emotions as unnecessary. After Korosensei's lesson, she gradually grasps the concept that the power of language is also important, and not simply science alone.

Yukiko Kanzaki (神崎 有希子, Kanzaki Yukiko)

Voiced by: Rina Satō (event anime), Satomi Satō (TV anime)

She is a student of class 3-E. Yukiko is diligent and ladylike, she is popular with her classmates and the most popular girl in the class. She comes from a high-class family that is very strict and demands her to get only good grades, good background, and good job. Last year, wanting to runaway from her lifestyle, she changed her appearance and went to play in arcade games without anyone recognizing her. However, because of her "playing background", she is assigned into class 3-E. However, after listening to Korosensei's words, she starts to have confidence in herself for who she is.

Megu Kataoka (片岡 メグ, Kataoka Megu)

Voiced by: Chie Matsuura (TV anime)

Female class representative. Megu has exceptional talent, she is really good in both academics and athletics. She is the best swimmer in Class E.

Hinata Okano (岡野 ひなた, Okano Hinata)

Voiced by: Minami Tanaka (TV anime)

Okano excels in knifework and is considered one of the two best out of all the girls in Class 3-E. The gymnast of Class E.

Hinano Kurahashi (倉橋 陽菜乃, Kurahashi Hinano)

Voiced by: Hisako Kanemoto (TV anime)

The Biologist of Class E.

Rio Nakamura (中村 莉桜, Nakamura Rio)

Voiced by: Manami Numakura (TV anime)

Class E's best in English. She was called a genius in primary school.

Rinka Hayami (速水 凛香, Hayami Rinka)

Voiced by: Shiho Kawaragi (TV anime)

Best marksman for the females of Class E.

Sumire Hara (原 寿美鈴, Hara Sumire)

Voiced by: Miho Hino (TV anime)

The cook.

Yuzuki Fuwa (不破 優月, Fuwa Yuzuki)

Voiced by: Kana Ueda (TV anime)

Class E's Manga specialist.

Tōka Yada (矢田 桃花, Yada Tōka)

Voiced by: Ayaka Suwa (TV anime)

Class E's infiltration specialist.

Kirara Hazama (狭間 綺羅々, Hazama Kirara)

Voiced by: Fūko Saitō (TV anime)

The librarian.

Ritsu (律, Ritsu)

Voiced by: Saki Fujita (TV anime)

Also known as Autonomously Thinking Fixed Artillery (自律思考固定砲台, Jiritsu shikō kotei hōdai) her name was shortened to Ritsu by her classmates. She is an AI developed by Norway and sent to dispose of Korosensei to learn his movement patterns and perfect her shooting skills in order to eventually kill him, but she eventually develops a conscience and becomes friends with the rest of class 3-E. Thanks to her processing power, she frequently helps with intel gathering and communications and usually interact with others by a smartphone application developed by her classmates.

Class 3-A

The class of top students in Kunugigaoka Junior High School. Its five highest ranked students dubbed themselves as Five Virtuosos (五英傑, Go eiketsu).

Gakushū Asano (浅野 学秀, Asano Gakushū)

Son of Kunugigaoka's Board Chairman. He is the clever but arrogant leader of 3-A and also the school's student council president. He and his father has strained relationship. He doesn't know about class 3-E's secret.

Teppei Araki (荒木 鉄平, Araki Teppei)

Ren Sakakibara (榊原 蓮, Sakakibara Ren)

Natsuhiko Koyama (小山 夏彦, Koyama Natsuhiko)

Tomoya Seo (瀬尾 智也, Seo Tomoya)

Antagonists

Gakuhō Asano (浅野 學峯, Asano Gakuhō)

Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa (vomic), Shō Hayami (TV anime)

Board Chairman of Kunugigaoka Junior High School and Gakushū Asano's father. He was the one who created Class E system. He and his son share a tense competitive term towards each other.

Red Eye (レッドアイ, Redoai)

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (event anime)

A talented sniper who is sent to Kyoto to assassinate Koro-sensei during a school trip. After several failed attempts, he gives up on his target after sharing a hot pot with him.

Akira Takaoka (鷹岡 明, Takaoka Akira)

A man who trained alongside Karasuma and was jealous of his abilities. He is sent to Class 3-E in order to take over their assassination training, but is forced to leave after being defeated by Nagisa, because of how sadistic his training was.

God of Death (死神, Shinigami)

The number one assassin in the world, who starts to hunt down other assassins and eventually targets Class 3-E and Koro-Sensei.

Media

Manga

Main article: List of Assassination Classroom chapters

The series began serialisation in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine on July 2, 2012. The first collected tankōbon volume was published on November 2, 2012. The initial print run for the first volume was 300,000, but after several reprints over 1 million copies were printed. Volume 12 was released on December 27, 2014. 10 million copies are in circulation. A VOMIC (voiced comic) version, which added voice clips to the manga pages, was featured on the Sakiyomi Jan Bang! variety show between January and June 2013. The series has been licensed in English by Viz Media for physical and digital release from in December 2014.

Anime

An original video animation based on the series was produced by Brains Base for the Jump Super Anime Tour and shown at 5 Japanese cities between October 6 and November 24, 2013. A television anime series based on the manga began airing on Fuji TV from January 9, 2015 and will run for 22 episodes. The television anime is being directed by Seiji Kishi at Lerche, with Kazuki Morita as character designer and Makoto Uezu as the lead scriptwriter. The anime has been licensed by Funimation, who are simulcasting the series as it airs.

Episode list

Template:Japanese episode listTemplate:Japanese episode listTemplate:Japanese episode listTemplate:Japanese episode listTemplate:Japanese episode list

No.	Title	Original air date

Film

A live-action film is in development. The film is scheduled for release in Japan on March 21 2015.

Reception

Over one million copies of volume 1 have been printed, and individual volumes frequently appeared on the lists of best-selling manga in Japan. Volumes 2, 3, 4, 1, 5, and 6 placed 26th, 32nd, 36th, 37th, 41st, and 50th respectively on the list of the best-selling manga volumes of 2013, making it the seventh best-selling manga series in Japan of 2013 with 4.5 million copies sold. It was ranked second in Zenkoku Shotenin ga Eranda Osusume Comic 2013, a 2013 ranking of the top 15 manga recommended by Japanese bookstores. It was nominated for the 6th Manga Taishō. It placed second in male-oriented comics category on the list of "Book of the Year" by Media Factory and manga news magazine Da Vinci. Nippon Shuppan Hanbai elected it the best work of 2013 in their "Recommended Comic Books Across the Country Clerk's Choice". It was number one on the 2014 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! Top 20 Manga for Male Readers survey by Takarajimasha.

External links

• Official anime website Template:Ja icon
• Assassination Classroom (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia